BS SHOW BIZ BUZZ:TODAY nominations for the 78th “Academy Awards” (MARCH 5th) will be announced at 5:30 am PST by Academy President Sid Ganis & Oscar-winning actress Mira Sorvino (NET: http://www.oscars.org/) . . . THIS YEAR’s “Razzie Award” nominations for the worst Hollywood movie of the year are dominated by sequels, including “Son of the Mask”, “Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo”, “The Dukes of Hazzard” and “House of Wax” (the ‘awards’ are announced on the eve of the Oscars) . . . THIS WEEK 32-year-old model Kate Moss has agreed to return to London on a private plane to meet with British cops investigating video that shows her snorting coke, and she’s expected to supply both a full confession & details of the drug supplier in order to avoid a potential 10-year jail sentence (in other words, she’s snitching to save her skin!) . . . THIS FALL FOX-TV is launching a half-hour comedy show at midnight Saturdays to directly compete with NBC-TV’s comatose “Saturday Night Live”, hosted by TV writer Spike Feresten (“Letterman”, “Simpsons”, “Seinfeld”) . . . Sad-to-be-single actress Halle Berry has been spotted getting cosy with 30-year-old hunky Versace model Gabriel Aubry (is it love or just gene-harvesting?) . . . In a new ad debuting during the “Super Bowl” broadcast, Jessica Simpson will sing the substitute lyrics “These Bites Are Made for Poppin’” to the tune of “These Boots Are Made for Walkin’” in order to promote Pizza Hut’s new ‘Cheesy Bites’ (cheesy indeed!).

BS MUSIC NOTES:• Alabama – TODAY their 3-disc career compilation “Livin’ Lovin’ Rockin’: The 25th Anniversary Collection” is released, which should do an adequate job of funding their retirement.
• Alicia Keys – TONIGHT she’s on the “Late Show With David Letterman”.
• Jennifer Lopez – She’s remarried husband Marc Anthony, at least on the Puerto Rican set of their new movie “El Cantante”. She donned a vintage wedding gown for the scene in which her character, ‘Puchi’, weds salsa legend ‘Hector Lavoe’, played by her real-life hubby.
• Justin Timberlake – He’s recorded collaborations with Snoop Dogg, Will.I.Am from Black Eyed Peas and Nelly Furtado for his upcoming 2nd solo album.
• Kanye West – His sociology professor dad is urging him to stop degrading African-Americans in his music. Ray West, a former Black Panther activist, says it was okay when Kanye was trying to generate some street cred early on, but now its time to start operating on a higher level.
• Kid Rock – TONIGHT he appears on ABC-TV’s “Jimmy Kimmel Live”.
• Michael Buble – TODAY he guests on the “Ellen DeGeneres Show”.
• Paul McCartney – YESTERDAY he attended 10th anniversary celebrations for the Liverpool Institute For Performing Arts (LIPA), which he founded on the grounds of his former school in January 1996.
• Also in stores TODAY: Heather Headley’s “In My Mind”; Train’s “For Me It’s You”; Andrea Bocelli’s “Amore”; The Temptations’ “Reflections”; Barry Manilow’s “Greatest Songs of the Fifties”; and “The L-Word: Season 3 Soundtrack”.

TODAY’S VIDEO RELEASES:• “Bubble” ( R-Rated Crime Drama – DVD ): Steven Soderbergh’s landmark film, not due to its content (a low-key drama about a small town romantic triangle starring non-professional actors), but because he’s ignoring the traditional lag time between a movie’s theatrical release and DVD release. It just opened in theaters FRIDAY (only 34 agreed to screen it) and the DVD simultaneously went on sale in theater lobbies. TODAY it’s in wide release on DVD as well as hi-def pay-per-view.
• “Corpse Bride” ( PG Family Fantasy – DVD ): Tim Burton returns to the handmade art of stop-motion animation for this story of a shy groom who’s overheard practising his wedding vows by a deceased young woman. She rises from the grave, assuming he has married her. Features the voices of Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter, Emily Watson & Tracey Ullman, among others. The puppets were made from stainless steel armatures covered with silicone skin.
• “In Her Shoes” ( PG-13 Chick-Flick Drama – DVD ): Cameron Diaz, Toni Collette & Shirley MacLaine star in this adaptation of Jennifer Weiner’s novel about estranged sisters and the grandmother they thought had abandoned them. Directed by Curtis Hanson (“8 Mile”, “LA Confidential”).
• “The Legend of Zorro” ( PG Action Adventure – DVD ): In this sequel to the 1998 swashbuckler, Antonio Banderas & Catherine Zeta-Jones return as the masked hero of Old California and his luscious-but-frustrated wife as a new menace brings them back together to save both their country and their marriage.
• Also on DVD TODAY: The 4-disc “The Essential Atom Egoyan Box Set”; “X-Files: The Complete 1st Season” (also “2nd” & “3rd seasons); “Muppet Movies DVD 3-Pack”; and the 3-disc “Pink Panther Classic Cartoon Collection” (just in time for the new Steve Martin “Pink Panther“ theatrical release FEBRUARY 10th).

FROM THE BS POLL VAULT:• 82% of us sing in the car.
• 80% of the richest men in America are clean-shaven.
• 61% of women would give up chocolate forever in return for a perfect body.
• 58% of students would rather be named ‘life of the party’ rather than ‘valedictorian’.
• 43% of Americans say they have worn ‘Mickey Mouse’ ears on their head at least once.
• 31% of teenagers believe they’ll become famous.
• 20% of wives make more money than their husbands.
• 4.1 % of movies released get a ‘G’ rating.

WHY PRETTY PEOPLE PROSPER:A new University of Pennsylvania-Yale University study has come to several conclusions about why the good-looking get ahead. Among them …
• Facial attractiveness is judged in a fraction of a second, so quickly that participants barely know it’s happening.
• Pretty faces are more often tied to positive words like ‘laughter’ and ‘happiness’ than negative words.
• Pretty faces seem to be judged as particularly powerful. Interestingly, other attractive things, such as pretty houses, do not spark the same reaction.
The bottom line isn’t too surprising – attractive people are not only paid more, they are judged to be more intelligent, and receive more overall attention than average-looking people. (How awful that must be for you, [co-host].)
– WebMD

BS AMAZING FACT:Giant squid eat each other … especially during sex.

WEIRD WORLD OF BS:• A Thai woman who set a world record by spending 32 days in a cage with 3,400 scorpions is set to marry a man who holds a similarly creepy record for centipedes. The couple will wed on “Valentines Day” and plan to consummate their vows in a coffin. They met while performing their respective stunts at a snake farm.
• A 57-year-old Tokyo man who’s been found living with 10 younger women says he attracted them thanks to a bizarre dream. He claims the dream informed him that he would become irresistible to women if he recited a particular incantation. A rapid series of weddings and divorces has left him with a large harem of ex-wives, mostly in their 20s & 30s, who all share his surname and continue to live with him.
• An armed robber demanding the day’s take at a betting shop in the Croatian capital of Zagreb was foiled when the female clerk ripped off his mask and slapped him upside the head. The 47-year-old woman says she was unfazed by the robber’s gun and told him, “Don’t be such a silly boy!”
• Officials in Amsterdam, Holland have agreed to allow a gang of teen hooligans to trash a new subway car in order to find out which parts need improving. City council has decided the only way to make sure the city’s new trains are ‘idiot-proof’ is to see if the prototype can withstand vandalism before producing more of them.

AND WE QUOTE:“I feel like a very attractive woman. A man becomes like an attractive woman when he’s successful.”
– 50 Cent, who’s apparently really changed due to fame & fortune.

BS REASONS TO PARTY . . .• “Al Hijra”, the Islamic New Year, marking the ‘Hijra’ in 622 CE when the Prophet Muhammad moved from Mecca to Medina and set up the first Islamic state.

• “Backwards Day”, a day to relieve the winter blahs by doing everything backwards, ie: calling people by their last name, eating meals in reverse, signing off your show at the beginning, etc.

• “Child Labor Day”, highlighting the problem of Third World children forced into the workforce. Canadian Craig Kielburger of Thornhill ON began an organization called ‘Free The Children’, dedicated to the elimination of child labor and exploitation of children, when he was just 12-years-old. Since then he’s become an unofficial roving ambassador for the cause.
NET: http://www.freethechildren.org

• “Play an Old Game You Haven’t Played in Years Night”. Maybe Yahztee, Scrabble, Monopoly, Canasta, … Hungry Hippo … Strip Poker?

THURSDAY is “Groundhog Day”, a celebration based on an old Scottish rhyme that says: “If Candlemas Day is bright and clear, there’ll be two winters in the year.” The Teutons (Germans) decided that if the Sun was out on Candlemas Day, an animal would cast a shadow, predicting 6 more weeks of bad weather (the ‘second winter’). The animal used then was either a badger or hedgehog. But when German settlers took the tradition with them to Pennsylvania, they used the groundhog (a type of woodchuck), which was abundant in the area. The woodchuck (as in “How much wood can a …”), is a member of the squirrel family. Canada’s best known prognosticator ‘Wiarton Willie’.
PHONERS: 877.844.9884/519.534.5492 (Francesca Dobbyn-Nadjiwon, Wiarton Willie Festival Co-ordinator
NET: http://www.brucepeninsula.org/willie.htm
• ‘Punxsutawney Phil’ is the original forecaster and most famous hog. Despite what organizers would have you believe, since 1887 this ‘Seer of Seers, Sage of Sages, Prognosticator of Prognosticators, and Weather Prophet Extraordinary’ has seen his shadow about 90% of the time and only made correct predictions 39% of the time. But organizers don’t really care – this whole deal isn’t about accuracy, it’s about tourism!
• The groundhog is pulled out of its electrically heated burrow at 7:25 am ET, looks for his shadow and utters his prediction to a Groundhog Club representative in ‘groundhogese’. The representative then translates the prediction for the general public.
PHONERS: 814.938.2555 (Punxsutawney Historical Society)/814.938.7700 (Chamber of Commerce)

THIS DAY IN SHOW BIZ . . .2005 [01] On “The Late Show”, David Letterman delivers Johnny Carson’s final monologue as a tribute of the legendary talk show host’s passing

TODAY’S MUSIC EVENT . . .1976 [30] Pittsburgh Steeler quarterback Terry Bradshaw (now FOX-TV NFL analyst) launches a short-lived country career with the release of “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry”

WHY BEER’S BETTER THAN WOMEN:
• You can enjoy a beer all month long.
• A beer doesn’t get jealous when you grab another beer.
• When you go to a bar, you know you can always pick up a beer.
• A beer won’t get upset if you come home with another beer.
• You can have more than one beer in a night and not feel guilty.
• You can have a beer in public.
• A frigid beer is a good beer.
• If you change beers, you don’t have to pay alimony.

BS PHONE STARTERS:• What were your favorite toys as a kid? Do you still have any of them?
• Which is the correct way to use a toothpaste tube – squeeze or roll?
• By what nickname do you wish you’d been known?

BS WATER COOLER QUESTION:Today’s Question: Only 2% of brides kept THIS in 1975. Nowadays, it’s more like 29%.
Answer to Give Out Next Show: Their maiden names.